


the universe was made for us

by paranatellon



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Class Trials (Dangan Ronpa), Dark Era (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai-Typical Suicide Mentions (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai-Typical Suicide References (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dead Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa), M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Past Dazai Osamu/Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Platonic Relationships, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26679223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranatellon/pseuds/paranatellon
Summary: | some spoilers in tags |The 77th class of killing, except it's Oda Sakunosuke's turn in the spotlight. Trapped in a school with no way out, a psychotic murder bear with a lust for blood, and fifteen other students he barely knows by name, make for a fear that clutches at his throat, claws digging in. Motives lead to murder, lead to blood on hands, and he can't help but wonder who will crack first.Dazai's a liability.Most of the other students are a mystery.Is it too much to hope that all sixteen of them will make it out alive?
Kudos: 12





	1. prologue

Darkness thrummed an unholy melody against his ears. Bruising, grating, his eyes and his nose and his mouth, blocking off all senses until he was overwhelmed by them, suffocated by the sheer lack of them going into overdrive.

And then, he swallowed, the first ounce of sensation in his body. The hem of a sleeve against the inside of his wrist; the weight of the watch he kept in his pocket instead of wearing.

The pressure of someone’s hands shaking him awake.

“Odasaku!” Even fighting off lethargy, Dazai’s singsong voice was unmistakable to him. His face bloomed into view, shaggy dark hair falling in pieces over his face and his eyes glimmering with mischief. A bandage-wrapped hand gripped his own. “You’ve been asleep _ages_ , Odasaku.” 

“Yeah.” He could feel the weariness wrapped tightly around his system, like the strips of cloth binding most of his friend’s body. He pushed himself to sit up, only then noticing he’d been asleep on the bench of what looked like a changing room, but the dull grey flooring and pale blue walls identified it as one he’d never seen before. “Where are we?”

“That’s…a good question.” He tugged Oda to his feet. “I think our best bet is to look around and see what we can find out.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sakunosuke agreed, releasing Dazai’s hand and brushing his off on the thighs of his loose-fitting trousers. 

The creak of the door was eerie in the silence, save for the two boys’ breaths as they exited the room. In a faint panic, their hands wound together again. It was grounding to have someone else there, when the world around them was bleached and grey, and there was an ache in Oda’s ears: the violent beep of a heart monitor.

Dazai's bandages were coming loose. He made a mental note to redo them for him later, since the concept of self-care was alien to him, or maybe he just enjoyed getting Odasaku to do things for him. 

Their hands stayed linked until Dazai came to a halting pause when the hallway came to a bend. Oda pulled back, narrowly avoiding crashing into him.

"What—" he barely uttered, before he heard it too.

Voices.

Many of them, stringing together, fragments of sentences and conversation beyond the red double doors. 

Dazai twisted the handle without a warning, earning the words, "You finally woke up."

Ango pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose before his hand fell back to his lap. His sentence had earned him a few glances, before a girl with an elegant mass of brown curls and an ice-blue stare murmured, "You know them?"

"Ango!" Dazai released Oda's hand and joined their third friend, the latter following close behind. They seemed to be the only ones who knew one another, everyone else standing off in awkward isolation, exchanging glances.

"So. This must be all of us." A man with raven hair cut sharp to his chin and devilish red eyes matching the lining of his cloak stepped forward, a black-gloved hand rising to his chin. 

The girl behind him sighed, twisting the end of her magenta plait between her fingers. She occupied one of the stray dining-room chairs, one leg propped up on the edge of the seat and the other swinging idly. He’d noticed Ango staring enough to realise how uncomfortable he was with the heel of her shoe pressing into the velvet cushion. "Sixteen students, and none of us know what's going on, am I right?"

"We don't know that!" A boy with choppy white bangs protested, desperation in his heterochromatic eyes as he turned to Oda with a pleading look in his eyes. "You must know what's going on, right? None of us know why we're here."

"I _would_ , if my ability was working." The one who spoke was a boy, dark-haired and his legs crossed on the table top. He rustled his bag of sweets as he spoke, taking off his rectangle glasses in the same motion he popped a pale-coloured bonbon in his mouth. "But it's not, and I can't help you."

"No, sorry. I guess I don't know any more than the rest of you. I...just know Dazai, Ango and I were meant to be students of Hope's Peak Academy this year."

"Well, obviously." The girl in plaits shot back, folding her arms over her chest. "We _all_ were. But this definitely isn't Hope's Peak."

That was for sure. Was this really the room full of Ultimates he was promised?

Oda did a cursory scan of the dining-room, finally leaning back against the table. A timid-looking girl sat in one corner, reading a book he considered to be one of his favourites. In the other, a boy whose unruly black hair descended into snowy tips, matching the skin on the fists barely hidden in his coat. Another girl watched him from the other side of the table, observably smitten, brown eyes studying his form and looking away when it seemed they were about to exchange glances. 

There were others too. A younger-looking girl in a red dress, navy hair falling in pigtails to the small of her back. She fidgeted with the yellow ribbon tied around her midriff as she scanned the room with sorrowful blue eyes, wide but icy, not truly taking in what she saw. Another girl seemed to have taken her under her wing: older-looking and taller, her hair a few shades darker than the pink dress wrapped around her body, and her crimson eyes changing from hot to cold depending on where she levelled her gaze. 

"This is ridiculous." Oda's head snapped up at the sound of a book being slammed shut. The voice was the kind that could easily command a room: loud and irrefutable, and belonging to a boy whose dirty-blond ponytail and razor-edged glasses forced everyone to look at him. "Instead of standing around, we should be doing something. If we're all as clueless as we say about why we all seemed to wake up here, I suggest we look for a way out. This was not on my schedule for today, and I plan to return to it as soon as possible."

"Maybe we can figure out why we're here if we share what we do know. I'll start. My name is Akiko Yosano, the ultimate doctor. I haven't had the opportunity to test my ability sadly, but I doubt it'll work." Yosano's heels tapped a rhythm against the tiled floor as she waited for the next person to speak, her arms folded over her chest in a way that dared people to look then made them beg for mercy for trying.

"My name is Sakunosuke Oda." He surprised himself by speaking next, but anything to make sense of what was happening. "The Ultimate Seer. But my ability activates of its own will, so I couldn't tell you if mine wasn't working."

"Doppo Kunikida." The notebook-wielder tore a page from the back and attempted to activate it by naming their ability. When nothing happened, he released his two fingers’ grip, letting it flutter to the ground. It skimmed the toe of Odasaku's shoe before hitting the floor. "Also known as the Ultimate Creator. However, my ability will not allow me to create anything bigger than my notebook, and circumstances are preventing me from creating anything at all."

Dazai introduced himself next, not needing a demonstration to bring quiet to the room, to those whose abilities could silence a storm. He felt stupidly proud in that moment of his smirking friend. The Ultimate Nullifier was certainly a force to be reckoned with.

One by one, the rest began to introduce themselves, and Sakunosuke started to piece them together, names, faces, and talents. The white-haired boy was Atsushi Nakajima, the Ultimate Beast. Kyouka Izumi, who made eye-contact with no one, the Ultimate Demon. Edogawa Ranpo, the Ultimate Detective, sat chewing on his bon bons, and when that packet finished, swiftly moved onto another. His friend Ango, the Ultimate Antiquarian folded his hands in his lap, piling them like a nervous habit. 

The Ultimate Power, the Ultimate Doll, the Ultimate Beauty, the Ultimate Focus, the Ultimate Typhoon, the Ultimate Silence. 

With a mask tied over their face and befitting of their name, they had yet to speak a word. 

The boy in the long black coat was the last to speak. "Ryuunosuke Akutagawa. My ability, Rashoumon, makes me the Ultimate Blade."

Or so Oda thought, because the girl who hadn't been able to tear her eyes away from Ryuunosuke sharply turned her head to the side. "If you have to know, I can't remember my talent. I can't help you."

That didn’t help things, but he couldn’t imagine not knowing what his talent was. That had to be worse than this—whatever this was.

“Then, we should do what Kunikida suggested,” Ranpo murmured without looking up. His voice had changed, no longer pitched with the same childlike frustration. “If none of us know what’s going on, and this really isn’t the academy, then we should be finding a way to get there.”

“I agree.” Atsushi’s soft gaze hardened with resolve, and he spun on his heel. “Should we split up? Or do we go all together? I’m not sure if we have any way to communicate though, so—”

“You’re not going anywhere!” A new voice echoed throughout the room they were gathered in. The vent beneath the ceiling crashed to the floor—Kyouka jumping nimbly out of the way—and a bear tumbled out, landing perfectly in the centre of the table. 

It couldn’t be more than three feet tall, but the half-black, half-white body and the heterochromatic gaze—one eye a black bean and the other a jagged crimson slit—made sure no one’s attention faltered. 

“My name’s Monokuma! Your host, your mentor, and most importantly, the headmaster of Hope’s Peak Academy.” ‘Monokuma’ strode back and forth across the tabletop, tiny paws propped on hips. “And here you all thought there wasn’t an entrance exam. Well, you were _wrong_.”

Higuchi’s jaw dropped. “An entrance exam?”

Sakunosuke couldn’t help but feel sympathy. How could she pass the entrance exam without even knowing her talent?

“You’re wrong. Hope’s Peak Academy doesn’t _have_ an entrance exam. I would have factored it into my schedule,” Kunikida retorted.

The bear simply laughed, pushing its paws to its mouth. “Talking back to your headmaster? Ooh, you’re bold. I bet all your friends think you’re _really_ cool. Do you get detention to prove how _cool_ you are as well? Because I can arrange that, if you really want!”

His jaw tensed. “What are you talking about.”

Monokuma continued on, simply ignoring the interruption. “Of course, it wouldn’t be a real detention. Just like, you’re right. This isn’t a _real_ entrance exam. This is a bona-fide Monokuma special—drumroll please—”

The silence was so powerful, it was deafening.

It pouted, folding its disproportionate arms over its chest. “You guys just don’t know how to have fun. Well, that will all change, because guess what, we’re going to play a game!”

A screen descended from behind it. Monokuma leapt out of its way, brandishing a remote and clicking through a PowerPoint presentation of all things until it got to the title slide.

 _WELCOME TO THE KILLING GAME_.

In bold. Red. Comic Sans font.

“Is this a failed attempt at a joke?” Kouyou breathed, placing a hand on Kyouka’s shoulder to steady her.

“This has to me some kind of—”

“ _God_ , didn’t your insignificant little public schools teach you not to speak while the teacher is presenting?” The bear ranted, slamming the next button. 

A transition appeared that tore the screen into shreds, before the next slide came into view. 

It didn’t know how to punctuate, but the rules were easy enough to understand.

So easy, in fact, that Oda immediately felt sick to his stomach. Once again, Dazai grabbed his hand for comfort.

But he hated it. He hated the feeling of their hands intertwined because while his was pale and shaking, Dazai’s stayed firm and unwavering. This boy could stare death in the face and _laugh_ , and Oda was hit with the sudden fear that he wouldn’t survive another night. If this was a killing game…

Dazai was the easiest target.

Because for as many times Oda could tell him the universe was built on stardust for only his eyes to see, Osamu craved that same dust, that same depraved senselessness to be his endgame, his fate.

But for as long as Sakunosuke lived, he’d never let it be so.

Steadying that resolve in his heart, he returned his attention to the screen.

_Kill or be killed in my brand new killing game! To win the game, all you have to do is commit murder and get away with it. Simple, right?_

_The game will continue until there is one blackened OR two spotless left._

_The body discovery announcement will play when three people find the victim, and after sufficient investigation will begin the class trial!_

_If you vote the murderer correctly they will be executed for their sins._

_But if you vote wrong, you all die and the blackened escapes!_

_Only the person who commits the murder has a chance to win! So, if you’re an accomplice, tooooough luck!! Upupupu_

“Escape? So we can’t just leave?” Someone asked.

It didn’t matter who.

Not to Oda, not when there was a talking bear in front of him telling him he had to kill people to leave this unfamiliar place. 

Not to Oda, when he knew the boy next to him didn’t care whether he lived or died.

“This…isn’t real.”

“Isn’t real? Upupupu, you should see the results of the other—I mean, what?” It put a paw to its face, cocking its head to the side. “ _Anywho_ , I can’t be bothered to read out everything else so all the rules will be in your Digibooks which are in your rooms. Don’t even try to outsmart the killing game, people die that way. Oh, and because you’re all in the fresh, youthful stage of your life where you think killing is wrong—”

“—Killing _is_ wrong—” 

“—I thought of a little something extra to really push you to your limits!”

Without warning, the room descended into thick, inky darkness. 

“It’s like this everywhere, and the lights won’t come back on until someone dies. See ya later!”

There was no way of telling Monokuma really left, but otherwise, nothing could be heard except the culmination of their breathing. 

“We don’t know for sure that he was telling the truth about escaping,” Atsushi offered nervously, a decapitated voice. Though Oda’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness, he could barely make out one acquaintance’s frame from another. “We could still try to—”

“Without your ability, none of us can see a hand in front of our faces,” retorted Akutagawa coldly, blending even more into the blanket of shadow. “Do you suppose it’ll be easy to find a way to escape?”

“If we don’t, then the lights will stay off until someone dies. Is that really a better fate?” Kouyou’s sigh was withering. “I volunteer to search for a way to exit. If no one wants to join me, fine, but I refuse to be a sitting duck. Kyouka?”

“I’ll come with you,” the other girl murmured. 

As they left, it became apparent Monokuma was telling the truth. The hallway was no brighter than the dining-room.

This was real, this was real, this was— 

“I’m going to go to my room.” Ango shot to his feet. He passed by Oda, gripping the inside of his elbow and whispering, “ _I need to speak to you and Dazai._ ”

He barely managed to nod before Ango disappeared, turning to Dazai though they could barely make one another out. “I think we should find our rooms as well. What about the rest of you?”

“Well, waiting mindlessly certainly isn’t on today’s agenda.” Oda was starting to think the snap of a notebook shutting was Kunikida’s signature sound. “Escape is the only option.”

“I think…I’m going to look for a way to escape as well. Maybe I can catch up with Kouyou and Kyouka,” said Atsushi.

“I think I’ll join you.” Mori, too, looked like a creature of darkness as he captured Atsushi’s attention. “Heaven knows there’s nothing logical about waiting for a murder to happen.”

“Nothing logical about looking for an escape when there obviously wouldn’t be one either!” Ranpo crinkled the packet in his hands and tossed it aside, the sharp plastic corners scuttling across the table. “I’m not going to waste my time on that.”

“Akutagawa, are you going to—”

“ _No_ ,” he snapped. “It’s foolish to even try. If there really was a means of escaping, that bear would have no way of pushing this game onto us in the first place. I’m going to find my room.”

“Then I will as well.” Higuchi leapt to her feet, bent on following him even though he wouldn’t even look at her.

Louisa had barely said a word since her introductions, but finally shut the book she was reading, as if finally noticing she wouldn’t be able to distinguish one word from another in this light. The rest stood in contemplative silence, either ignoring his question, or never having heard it.

“We should go, Odasaku.”

“Okay.”

Dazai led Sakunosuke out of the room by the hand, blindly turning corners and proclaiming he could sense the rooms would be around the next corner (they never were) until the latter had had enough and chose a hallway at random.

It was hard to discern what they were looking at, until Osamu noticed one of the doors was ajar. “Is that Ango’s room?”

“It must be,” Oda murmured, gripping the handle and tugging it the rest of the way open.

Ango was an upright silhouette on his bed. “Shut the door behind you. I don’t want anyone else to hear our conversation.”

He did as asked, perching on the bed beside Ango. “What is it?”

“I did…a thorough search of the building before meeting with the others in the dining hall. The breaker has a timer, so the power-cut was preplanned. But there’s no way the bear would be able to set the timer, leading me to believe that someone among them is working for Monokuma, or, more likely, is in charge of it.” He folded his hands on his lap. “A mastermind, of sorts.”

“So, if we stop the mastermind, the killing game will end?” Dazai asked, hushed, paranoid of the rooms on either side. “Of course, that’s given that there is a mastermind in charge of Monokuma. Is there any way we can find out for sure?”

“If you did a thorough search of the school, are there any places you think could be some kind of base?” pressed Oda.

There was a soft intake of breath as Ango opened his mouth, but his words were cut off by a cacophony of rain flushing the outside, battering against the windows—blackout curtains padlocked to the glass—and wind howling throughout the quietude of the building. 

Sakunosuke closed his eyes, timing his heart rate to the pulse of the storm. It calmed him.

What for others was a bad omen, he took as a sign that this threat would be washed away by morning. 

“I think if the people looking for escape routes have no success in an hour, we should sleep.” He looked towards the door. “They may not be our friends, but Monokuma, the mastermind—if there even is one—can’t win if we won’t let them.”

“Odasaku…”

“Goodnight, Dazai. Goodnight, Ango. I hope that after tonight, we’ll get to attend Hope’s Peak Academy for real.”

He rose to his feet, Dazai studying him like a hawk even as he left. 

As soon as he found his room—through a lot of guesswork and squinting until he could make out his name on the door—Sakunosuke wrapped himself up in the covers, snatching the sleek electronic notebook from the bedside and taking it with him. 

The Digibook came with a map. Oda’s bottom lip ended up beneath his teeth as he studied it, the glow emanating from the screen barely enough to draw out his backpack from the shadows. Well, not his backpack. A backpack marked with his name in an indistinguishable scrawl, but everything inside was so very much _his_. His most treasured books, his extra lucky watch, the clip he used to keep his hair out of his eyes while reading.

Only nostalgia rivalled the fear.

So once again, with a hand over his heart, he sucked in a deep breath and allowed himself to be lulled to sleep by the rain.

There was a gazebo outside the main building. He’d go there in the morning, to read his book.

Light moved on endlessly, after all. And not even the mastermind could turn off the sky.

**16 PEOPLE LEFT.**


	2. hearts and minds on fire (part one)

The morning Oda woke up to was as dark as the night. 

Panic bolted a marathon on his chest at the unfamiliar setting, the black against the windows making him feel as though he’d never opened his eyes at all. He spent precious moments breathing, gripping the covers into fists, as he strained for the sound of the storm that kept him going.

Washing away the blood he vowed would never be spilled.

The wooden floor was freezing, coldness seeping up through the soles of his socks. He kept the duvet around his shoulders as he dressed for the day, only shedding it the moment his tan-coloured jacket was secured on his shoulder, a scratched-up watch from Dazai in the right breast pocket.

Blindly, he fumbled around until he found his backpack, closing his hand around one of the books within. Ango had mentioned something about convening in the dining-hall, and then he would have the rest of the day to read.

Did he need to find Dazai first?

As he advanced towards the door, a screen flickered to life in the corner, purging his eyes with bright light. He blinked to remove the incapacitating phosphenes, only half listening to Monokuma.

" _ Good morning everyone! It's seven AM, and the start of a bright, wonderful morning! Nighttime's officially over so get up, up, up, folks! _ "

The bear had even planned their days down to the hour. Nighttime was their curfew, ten PM to be exact. He hadn't heard anyone stir past that hour, though he himself was already close to sleep by that point.

From the sounds in the hallway, no one else had woken up. Either they were ignoring the morning announcement or the stress of yesterday made everyone comatose. 

Maybe he had time for some light reading after all.

Sakunosuke kept his footsteps light as he navigated through the hall, feeling along walls and door frames until he found his bearings. Barely having seen the building before the power-cut didn't help things, but he used the sound of the falling rain to guide him to what felt like an outside-leading door, moisture gathering in the cracks in the insulation.

To his dismay, even the outside was dark. More blackout curtains had been pasted to the glass roof of the gazebo, which was directly connected to the side of the building with a glass-roofed hallway.

Still, with his Digibook and the faint light creeping in through the cracks in the fabric, he could hope to get a few pages in before his eyes gave out from the strain. 

Rain dripped onto him from overhead. He buried his book in the folds of his jacket, protecting the worn pages while cold water crept down his cheeks and the bag of his neck, drawing out the sparse warmth left in his body.

By the time he reached the gazebo, he was half-drenched, his jacket taking the brunt of it. The air here was chillier, sinking into his skin, but the light was grey and hazy, compared to the bleakness of the world indoors. 

He felt the first spark when he went to take a seat.

Rolling flames sprinted up his calf. Skin blistering, igniting, tearing into his clothes. He fell to his knees screeching, screaming in agony, head cradled in his hands as the fire enveloped his entire body.

One blast. Two. Blood dripping from his ears.

Charred skin crumbled. The smell of singed hair scorched the air.

His eyes twisted shut. His nerves were shattering. 

_ Dazai, Dazai, Dazai. _ He licked his lips, tasted the ash, the misery, the tears.  _ You have to remember, even when I’m not there to tell you. _

_ The universe was made for you, you know? _

Oda sucked in a final breath, allowing the smoke to sear his lungs.

He never truly thought it would be him who died first. 


	3. hearts and minds on fire (part two)

I needed a pen. The urge was rising, a wave reaching its crest, and for once, my bandages were grey at the edges, not feathered with blue.

Things were less terrible until they weren't. My world was dark, barricaded. Blackout curtains and padlocks. These unfamiliar hallways were my prison, and I could never leave with my hands clean.

But you’d never look at me the same.

You’re too idealistic, thinking we could make it out of a killing game without anyone getting hurt. 

Someone would crack eventually.

I had my suspects, too. Kyouka, while her front was cold and apathetic, seemed the kind of girl who would jump at lightning, or brandish a knife at a bump in the night. Atsushi, for all his determination, might find his faith in hope to be his greatest undoer. Higuchi, with her unknown talent had the most to lose and the most to gain, a question hovering above her head everyone else had answered.

I continued to consider suspects, occupying my mind at the same rate my hands tossed through the room in search of a biro, quill, marker, anything. 

My stare poured shadows and my retinas burned. Exhaling, I turned to the door. Breakfast was soon, but the itch on my limbs was a different kind of hunger—a craving for pain, and blood, and panic.

I hated to hurt, but the silence that came after was delicious.

Mind whirring. Monokuma’s morning announcement had just played, so you had to be awake. I didn’t know where your room was, so I felt along the passage, coarse plaster and fingers in hinges, my mouth tasting of blood before I noticed the open door.

Before my eyes began to bleed.

Violent crimson scoured my vision. Scrubbing my eyes did nothing but mutilate my eyelids, tears streaming down my cheeks.

I blinked once. Twice.

My hands had curled into fists.

_ And I could see them _ .

Your door was open.

“Odasaku!” All thoughts of finding a pen flew out of my brain. I called your name until my throat was raw, checking every room, once, twice, three times.

The lights were on and you were gone.

Someone was dead and you were gone.

You were never meant to die first.

Promise me you didn’t die first.

“Dazai!” Ango sprinted up to me. “You’re late for breakfast. Where’s Oda?”

Your name wouldn’t dislodge from my throat. “I don’t know. His door was already open when the lights came on.”

His expression changed, flickered with a solemn gravity that made my heart twist. “Dazai…” his voice was quiet, halting,  _ afraid _ . “Everyone else made it to breakfast this morning.”

Was that rhythm the blood pounding in my ears? Or was it the rain you so loved to hear?

“The body discovery announcement hasn’t been made.” Atsushi’s hand was shaking. He held two full, steaming plates. Even if I had the stomach to eat right now, only one of them would ever get finished. “None of us have…we need to find him. Do you—do you have any idea where he might be?”

“He would have just wanted somewhere he could read his book.”

“Where he could listen to the rain,” supplied Ango quietly. Atsushi nodded, deep in thought.

“Everywhere was dark. Even with the light from his Digibook, he wouldn’t have had enough light to read with, right?”

“With that, and the combination of enough outside light, you could manage it.” Louisa had joined them, all frightened expressions and glasses slipping down her nose and softly-spoken words, twisting the fabric of her thick skirt in her palms. Everyone had realised by now. They had to have. “I was looking for places. Th—there’s a gazebo outside, but it was raining, so…”

Ango and I barely had time to exchange glances before Atsushi, tossing the plates aside, tore between us at lightning speed. Even without his ability, he was quick and agile, the door being flung open and slamming shut in under a second before I was bolting after him, wind chipping at my skin, sparkling rain dripping from the gutters, blackout curtains peeling from the glass, the gazebo door ajar.

Your body wasn’t there, Odasaku.

A scratched watch, a crumbling book.

And the charred remains of your favourite tan coat. 

In all the dreams I had, this was never the way it played out. It would be a dim room on a grey day. I would come and find you, just in time but too late. You’d be lying there, in a pool of your own blood, the bullet having pierced your skin.

Waiting.

I’d find you and you’d be waiting. To cup my cheek, pull the bandages from my face. Make me promise something to you. A good man, a better man. One who lives on in your memory. 

But none of that came to play.

I sunk to my knees, gripping the damp fabric in tremulous hands. 

“ _ A body has been found! A body has been found! Do all your investigating now, because soon enough, it’s class trial time! Upupupu. _ ”

“Check your Digibook. Monokuma issues a report of the body when it is found.” Kunikida knelt beside Dazai, swiping through his until he settled on the page he was looking for. “He’s reported to have died in the last half-hour, after the morning announcement. Location: the gazebo. Cause of death: incineration.”

We didn’t even have your body to investigate. 

“I don’t care about finding the killer. Does it matter? Whether we vote correctly or incorrectly, Odasaku is still  _ dead _ —”

“But he’ll never get justice,” murmured Ango on his other side, gaze downcast. “And his killer will win. Oda would never want that. He would never want you to waste your life. Even if you refuse to investigate…I won’t. I will find his killer whether I have your help or not.” 

“Ango…”

You always told me the universe was made only for my eyes to see. But what if I were to close them? I never wanted to look at the stars I loved so much again, not if you could never be there beside me.

“You solve his murder. Or you let him die in vain. Were all those dreams of yours for nothing?” 

I forgot I’d told him about the dreams. He listened to me speak, the two of us drawing constellations on my bandages when things were particularly bad. Gemini and Scorpio and Libra, all intertwined.

The three of us, until there were only two.

“Fine.” I rose to my feet, pocketing your things close to my heart. “I’m going to search this area.”

“Then…I’ll go to search his room.”

Ango left the room, leaving it in silence. Most people who had arrived since the body discovery announcement had already left, pursuing different leads and clues, leaving Atsushi, Ranpo, Kunikida, Kyouka, and Kouyou in this area. 

The gazebo was little more than it presented on the surface. Without the light-engulfing curtains, pale light poured into the sparsely-decorated space. A child’s chair faced a single bookshelf, the shelves empty and congealed with layers of dust. Little else filled the space. Just a door that faced out into nothing, and a wet pile of ash on top of loose floorboards.

The whole room seemed to lean askew, as if a typhoon had pushed right through and left it gaping; mourning the loss of everything that used to be.

“Judging by the shape of the pile, he was reaching for the door. It’s reasonable to assume he was facing in that direction when the fire was started.” Ranpo inspected the door, wrenching it open to see where it led to. “Just another outside door. Bins and a storm-drain.” 

The darkness of the wood meant it would have been near-invisible in the darkness. Except to Oda, who came to this place purely for its light. 

“Where did this towel come from?” Kunikida pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, the corner of a white bath-towel between his two fingers. “It looks like the kind stocked in our bathrooms.”

“It smells like it was recently damp.” Atsushi took the other end. “But only towards the middle. If it was used to dry something, then it wasn’t something very big. It can’t have been too wet, either. But how did it avoid the sprinklers?”

“It was hidden under this chair.” Kunikida pointed to the lone chair I’d noticed earlier. “To make it less visible, perhaps?”

"Probably," Atsushi agreed, but I was hesitant to do the same.

"If they really wanted to, they could've done a better job of hiding it. A strong enough wind could have pushed it aside."

"Oh! Maybe,"

“Probably," I corrected, turning to the two women who had been having their own conversation in the other corner. Kyouka looked up as I approached, revealing the object she had in her hands.

“There was a knife over here, just on the floor.” She looked scarily at ease wielding the knife like it was an extension of her limbs. 

“It was in plain sight beside the shelf. The blade is scratched, but there’s no way of telling if it was beforehand,” Kouyou added, her eyebrows pinched in a weary frown. “Perhaps a kitchen knife?”

“Those were brand-new. I did an inventory of them.” Kunikida took it from Kyouka’s grasp, inspecting the hilt and the blade with unwavering scrutiny. “Yes. This is from the kitchen, meaning these scratches are relevant to the crime.”

Everyone was doing their best for you, Oda. Searching the room, comparing clues. The towel, the knife. Wet ash seeping into the floorboards. A door that led to nowhere. 

I approached it, gingerly sidestepping the place your body used to be, a sinking feeling squirming in the pit of my stomach. The metal of the handle was cool to the touch, jarring against my flushed palms. I twisted it, and the unnaturally malleable metal grated against the wood, clearly too big for the door. 

The handle had clearly been replaced, but why?

As I turned, I was once again hit with the reek of smoke and singed hair, the last remnants of you. You and your nervous half-chuckle; your hand that had grown accustomed to the spaces in mine. 

I'd never have them again: pieces of you I was meant to commit to memory, and now yearn for forlornly, because I always took it for granted that you would be the one who outlived me.

"Didn't we already confirm the door leads to nothing?" Kunikida, who had been inspecting the mostly undisturbed clumps of ash, frowned as he stood next to me. "That door-handle looks suspicious. Was it replaced?"

"Feel it."

He did as I suggested, the pinch in his brows deepening at the metal seeming to bend when he placed gutting pressure on it. 

"What purpose would there be in changing the door-handle?"

I shook my head, unable to think of a reason that seemed likely. To come to any conclusions, you would want me to find more evidence.

"A metal like that...I think it's best if I go and search the science labs. Maybe they'll have a similar element there."

"I'll join you," Atsushi offered, inviting himself along before I had room to protest. He matched my pace easily, going so far as to open the door for me.

When we were safely inside, I realised he had other reasons for going with me.

"I don't want to think badly of anyone," he began haltingly, not seeming to care that I was only half-listening. "But yesterday I noticed that Kyouka may have been frightened of the storm. I—I don't  _ want _ to think anyone would kill for any reason, but...Oda was your friend. I'd like for you to be able to know who did it."

I sighed. The chemistry lab—the first of three—was around the next corner. "Thank you, Atsushi."

"You're welcome," he replied softly, wrenching the handle to let us both inside.

The chemistry lab was hospital-cean and reeked of disinfectant, the straight white lines and dull grey accents reminiscent of a medical bay.

Briefly, I wondered if the biology lab was a morgue.

"Hey, what happened here?" I joined him where he was standing, his head dropped into the depths of one of the sinks on the side. Instead of clinical white, the sides of the basin were smeared with grey, like diluted charcoal staining the white walls. Thoughtful, he traced a finger along the inside and frowned at the blackened residue on his skin. "Ash. Something was burnt here."

I nodded, inspecting the scattered papers lining the counter. They, too, were spotted with flecks of dark grey, as if victim to the ash but not the burning. Which meant it had to be a fire with enough movement to disperse the particles. 

"So, what are we looking for?"

"A soft, silvery metal." I began peering into the upper cabinets, identifying jars filled with various liquids, and others brimming with unfamiliar compounds. More often than not, they would come with warning labels listing various things that could cause hazards: irritability, toxicity, and flammability when exposed to the wrong thing. Some elements were even suspended in oil, haphazardly labelled that they would ignite when exposed to water. "I don't know my way around a place like this."

"Me neither," the white-haired boy admitted with a resonant sigh. "I find it odd that anyone's been here at all, since the lights went off before we really had a chance to explore."

"And some of us had more opportunity than others," I finished his thought, my hand slipping.

If they were here when the lights were still on,

then it meant they planned to kill you from the very beginning. 

"Maybe we should—"

Atsushi was cut off by a melodious bell toll. The screen in the corner of the room switched on, revealing Monokuma with his face propped on his paw, his mismatching eyes seeming to sear right through us.

"Time's up! Everyone gather at the gold-edged double doors in the east wing. It's trial time!"

With a flash of static, it faded to black.

"After this...someone else is going to die, aren't they?" His voice was tremulous, lost in the whirlwind of quietude engulfing my thoughts.

"I'll make sure of it." My fist clenched of its own accord. 

You're not here, Odasaku. You wouldn't want anyone else to die.

_ But I don't have a choice.  _


End file.
